One day last summer, Monroe (WI) Clinic delivered its employees iced lattes with a special message—"We appreciate you a latte!" The gesture thanked employees for embracing the hospital's effort to improve service and, thereby, patient satisfaction scores.
"As an organization, we did not have consistent staff expectations for service delivery," says Cindy Werkheiser, vice president of service excellence at the not-for-profit health system, which operates a 100-bed hospital and a series of outpatient clinics. "We also did not have a consistent structure of accountability for service delivery. We could deliver good service, but we needed to deliver it more consistently and make it exceptional."
In today's healthcare environment, HCAHPS has created a direct link between service, patient satisfaction scores, and reimbursement because value-based purchasing rewards high performers.
Werkheiser worked with consulting firm Baird Group to create a universal list of service standards and identify staff member "coaches" to help facilitate the process. She soon realized the road to service excellence was difficult to navigate, but the rewards would justify the journey.
Create service accountability
"Delivering great service is just a smart business practice for any organization in any industry. It builds loyalty and positive word of mouth," says Kristin Baird, president and CEO of Baird Group. "But in healthcare, service builds trust, creates a more positive experience, and drives up patient satisfaction scores."
At Monroe Clinic, the cultural overhaul began by increasing employees' awareness and accountability for service standards. The health system adopted the motto, "Every Customer, Every Encounter, Every Day!"
"Staff can [now] recognize exceptional service and recognize others for meeting and exceeding our standards," Werkheiser says. "Coaches and directors are holding staff accountable to standards. Service standards are also integrated into our interviewing process, new employee orientation, and coaching process."
Making each and every staff member accountable fosters service excellence from the inside-out, rather than from the top-down, she says. Employees want to take pride in their work, and promoting service excellence serves to amplify that desire.
Service excellence enriches the organizational culture, Baird says. "In order to have a culture where patients want to come for care, where providers want to practice and where employees want to work, there needs to be a spirit of service that prevails in every encounter," she says. "This type of culture not only improves the patient experience and the resulting satisfaction survey scores, but it helps to increase employee and provider engagement and retention."
Engage providers and employees
Monroe Clinic seeks to improve employee engagement by making sure the staff knows that they are appreciated. Leadership delivers this message in multiple ways.
"We've created methods for recognizing service excellence among staff, including online thank you's and a monthly service update highlighting service stories that reflect our commitment to our standards," Werkheiser says. "We also generate fun in the process with spontaneity, like the day when we thanked employees by delivering cold lattes."
Beyond boosting employee satisfaction, high service excellence can promote physician loyalty as well.
"Physicians want to know that their patients are in good hands," Baird says. "Physicians will direct their admissions to hospitals where the service is good and patient satisfaction is high."
Build a path to excellent service
When embarking on the journey to service excellence, it's critical that leadership maps out specific goals and understand how they are going to get there.
The Monroe Clinic leadership team decided at the outset that they wanted to reach the 90th percentile in patient satisfaction scores.
"The senior leadership recognized the need for consistency and the expectation that we can do better to improve the experience for our patients and guests," Werkheiser says. "We worked to train and evaluate directors and coaches in leadership competencies around service expectations before training all staff."
Monroe hasn't hit the 90th percentile yet, but Werkheiser is confident that they have all the pieces in place to hit that benchmark soon.
"We are in the early stage of service culture transformation," she says. "We are very proud of our service standards and our new coaching model that will lead us to future success in delivering exceptional experiences. We've created an awareness of service standards that didn't exist before."
Marianne Aiello is a contributing writer at HealthLeaders Media.